


Full Scramble (no protocols in place for a crush)

by Marvelous_apparitions



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe, F/F, Meet-Cute, Pining, Useless Lesbians, because i'm trash, the EMS/Police AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvelous_apparitions/pseuds/Marvelous_apparitions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holtz is a young and eager new EMT in a suburb somewhere outside of New York City.<br/>Officer Gilbert has the nerve to get sworn in a few months after her and start showing up on her calls, like it's her goddamn job or something, and it's very distracting.</p><p>Aka the really obscure first responders AU that no one in their right mind would ever ask for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 Times Holtzmann notices Gilbert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timelording](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelording/gifts).



 

**I. Scene Safety**

"Holtzmann, get your feet off the dash," Abby scolds, as she pulls their ambulance around the corner, headed towards their home base. Holtz grins with a mouth full of pringles and shrugs, doing as she was told, her 511s hitting the floor of the rig with a solid clunk.

"I can't believe you eat in here, it's disgusting," Abby remarks without much feeling as she pulls into their lot.

"Hey," Holtz protests, "we clean this baby every day. And after every call. You could probably eat off the floors." 

"If you eat off of any of these floors, I'm making sure we never full-time hire you." 

...

"Hey Abs?" Holtz pipes up after awhile, once they'd both walked inside, grabbed water bottles, and settled into the couches like permanent fixtures, immovable until the next drop of the tones,

"Who's that cute-voice-girl on the police scanner?"  
  
"Officer Gilbert? She's new. Figures you'd hone in on the first female voice you heard over that thing,"Abby rolls her eyes, not even looking up at the blonde, scrolling through her phone. 

Holtz smiles absentmindedly as she picks at the wrapper on her water, leaning back so far into the couch it almost swallows her,

"Well, she sounds shy. She should really work on that." 

**II. Level Of Consciousness**

"What do we got," prompts Holtz, shouldering the jump bag and holding a small oxygen tank under her opposite arm. Abby is behind her at the back of the ambulance, grabbing the stretcher. 

The new officer, with her brown hair cut in a bob, her severe but smooth face, and her unfairly soft voice, answers, more firmly than Holtz had ever heard her over the radio,

"90 year old female with difficulty breathing, we've got her on our O2, Husband is home but bedridden,"

"Thanks," Holtz says, smiling a little, following behind Officer Gilbert and helping Abby with the stretcher as they move inside.

....  
  
"Nice to meet you," Holtz comments offhandedly, right before closing the rear doors of the ambulance from the inside, preparing to drive away, "you're a real help, Officer Gilbert. For carrying the patient with us, I mean."

As the doors slam she thinks she hears, "It's Erin."

Erin, she thinks, suddenly a little lightheaded, shaking it off so she can adjust her patient's oxygen levels and take her history while pulls out into the road. What a cute name. Mouse-y and sweet. Like it's owner. 

Her brain tries it out again, later that night when she's headed to bed. Though she doesn't know why. Can't figure out the fascination.

Erin. Erin Gilbert. 

**III. ABCs**

They're on a crazy scene. They've got two patients, and only their one ambulance available, they're waiting on the paramedics, and the Fire Department is in the right shoulder of the road, angled into the first couple of lanes, keeping things clear for them. 

Holtz is the new one, just barely an EMT, and so she gets saddled with documentation, frantically writing down everything she can gather from the questions that Abby is asking the two women who have been in the car crash, as Abby is bandaging their wounds and making sure nothing is broken, she's still scribbling away when Gilbert sidles up beside her, turns towards her, initiates eye contact.  
  
"I need the names of every emergency responder that's on this call. Make sure you get them," she says. And it's...forceful. So forceful, the way she says it, it's almost impatient. She places a slip of blank paper on top of Holtz's clipboard and walks away to talk to Chief Tolan over at Fire without another word. 

 _Man_ , Holtz thinks, clipping the blank sheet in place and writing her crew leader (Abby Yates) and then her own name, checking with Abby to make sure she could go get this done for the policewoman that's brought this vague blush to her face, before wandering off to collect the rest of the personnel's info.

In all the months she's known her from afar, she'd never seen Erin Gilbert take charge like that. It's does something to her, puts something in her heart that's scorching hot and suddenly impossible to ignore. 

 _Man. I'm in trouble._  ( No really. She's fucked). 

 

**IV. Vital Signs**

Patient's pulse. Heart rate. Respiratory rate. Blood pressure. Pupils. Skin. Is Erin Gilbert watching?  
Always in the back of her head. This is her life now.   
Her shoulders feel a little broader, more purposeful when she opens up the ambulance doors and wheels the stretcher in. She's peacocking. But she can't help it. She knows Abby's laughing at her, on the inside. But she can't help that either.

Gilbert shoots her an impossibly dorky thumbs-up before she gets into her car and leads them out. It's so unexpected, and she thinks, well, maybe she has a shot. 

(Or perhaps she's making too much of this, and she doesn't have a chance in hell at all). 

 

**V. Decision Time**

There's a drunken patient in the back of their rig, and Gilbert's on board with them sitting opposite her for the entire ride to the hospital, one hand on the patient's chest keeping the loud woman in check, the other at her belt, inching toward her handcuffs. Holtzmann can't quite stop herself from stealing periodic glances at her face. Gilbert's got her face in resting position, the total picture of cool-and-casual, and inexplicably Holtzmann feels proud of her. She's not entirely sure why. It's an odd, sentimental feeling.   
  
They make eye contact for a second when Gilbert catches her looking, and Gilbert smiles quickly with the corner of her mouth, like she's saying 'we're on the job, but I see you.'

The patient rips them out of the moment, no longer screaming random obscenities, or threatening about her hatred of hospitals, she's moved onto her hatred of men, shouting, "Men are assholes!",

Erin, trying to lighten the mood in the tense box, replies with a smirk over the patient's head, knowing better than to make eye contact, "I can't say I disagree with you,"  
and the patient shoots right back,  
  
"You're not a dyke, are you?!"  
  
Its an unconscious reaction, completely. For both of them. Holtz isn't sure who starts laughing first, Erin or her - and miraculously the patient, well...she starts laughing too.   
At least for a moment. Before she moves on to swearing about the uncomfortable tightness of her shoes. 

"Ma'am, it's going to be okay. We're just trying to help you," Holtzmann soothes, placing a hand cautiously on the woman's shoulder. Erin nods at her, looks down at the patient, says calmly,  
  
"We're going to be there soon."

...

Afterwards, as they're leaving the hospital, Holtz can't help but slap Abby's arm and joke while Erin is in earshot, "As far as I know, there was only one dyke in that ambulance!"  
All in the guise of relieving some kind of awkward tension. But really, she felt the need to out herself. Or to make Erin laugh. Maybe both.

Erin laughs, and grins when she looks at her.   
  
She tries not to stumble with the force of how unbelievably flustered she feels.   
  
(Abby snorts and asks her if she'd been out drinking late last night, when she watches Erin walk away and nearly falls over the curb behind her feet, anyway). 

 

 


	2. 5 Times Erin Notices Right Back

**I. Dispatch**

"You're staring at that EMT," Kevin points out blankly, gnawing on a bagel, talking out the corner of his mouth as he reclines in the passenger seat of their vehicle.   
  
"I don't have any clue what you're talking about," Erin says lightly, her eyes tripping down the small blonde woman's form with all the grace of an elephant trying to tiptoe. When Holtz closes the ambulance doors she shoots a look to their vehicle and waves briskly. Erin smiles and waves back, trying to seem cool and casual but failing, her arm shaking in the embarrassing arc of an overeager schoolchild saying goodbye to their mother on the first day of school. Oh my god, she thinks. Oh my god.

....  
  
"She's laughing at you, now."  
  
"God Kev. I know. Please shut up." 

**II. Unit Out**

"Do you need me to carry anything?" Erin asks, following Holtz and Abby into the patient's house, squaring her shoulders the way she does when she knows she has to look tough, larger than she is somehow. "Thanks, Erin but we're good," Abby says, smiling at her. Holtz turns her head towards her and smiles as well,  
"You're good at this."

Erin tilts her head a little as they get to the door, wants to ask, "at what?" but doesn't have the time before they're entering and she's leading the crew into the scene.   
  
"Shit," Abby mumbles under her breath as they note the elderly man lying in the kitchen, hastening their approach, "we're gonna need the Reeves for this one. His hip looks pretty bad."  
  
"Erin, could you -" Holtz begins, and Erin stands up straight, feels the ridiculous urge to salute but thankfully it passes, 

"Got it!" she barks out, rushing out the door.

  
....

She helps guide Abby and Holtz down the porch steps as they carry the man on the bright orange flexible stretcher, and she hovers by them as they load onto the proper stretcher and into the rig, on the surface confirming that they've got it all handled, but truly she just wants one more word out of Holtzmann, one little snippet of acknowledgement, even though she's embarrassed to admit that to herself. She gets it in the form of a joke,  
  
"phew, what a workout, huh?" the blonde smirks, wiping sweat off her brow,  
"especially in these pants..."  
  
Erin laughs, nodding, "right? we should all retire and start a company -  
  
"for breathable First Responder gear!" Holtz interjects, like she's in on the joke. Like Erin's a genius. She feels her pulse begin to speed up, wonders if she'll soon need their services.  
  
"Exactly!" 

Abby finishes buckling up the patient and slaps the back doors impatiently, and Holtz snaps back into gear, running toward the front of the truck so she can drive. Erin shouts over her shoulder as she heads to her own cop car,   
"Call me, if you ever wanna do that, because I'd be in!" She makes the "call me" sign by her ear, and everything. She feels smooth. Until she gets into the drivers seat and Kevin just snorts. She resists snapping at him, wondering why he never does anything but sit in the car and eat, but takes a deep breath, starts up the silver SUV,

...

and ends up backing into a tree a little bit in her nervousness. While Holtz watches and waits for her to clear out of the way. Great! She sighs. 

Just great. 

**III. Copy**

Holtzmann friends her on Facebook at 2 in the morning a few days later. At first she has no idea how she found her but then remembers her last name is on her shirt. Obviously. 

She accepts as fast as she can because that's how you show interest, damn it!  
She doesn't make a move, though.

Doesn't see Holtzmann that day or the next. Or the next.

(But the little request notification is all she can think about for a week).

**IV. Negative**

Erin stands stiffly by the sergeant's vehicle as he berates her for not directing traffic smoothly enough. Or something like that. Honestly, there are some comments about her hair not being tied back properly thrown in too, and they're just sexist enough to have her zoning out defensively, looking her superior in the eye but not giving him the satisfaction of an expression. 

The worst of it is, just across the street on a little hill at Memorial Park, the rescue squad, police and fire department stand at rest, with a crowd of civilians seated beside them, today of all days being the dedication ceremony for the new monument. 

And sergeant Murray isn't making a scene, exactly. He isn't shouting to be heard. But none of the other patrol officers are looking at her, and Holtz glances her way once or twice, concerned even from such a distance. He's making a fucking spectacle of her in the most underhanded way and she hates it. 

She hates it. 

**V. Feedback**

There's a message sitting in her inbox on Facebook when she gets home the same day, a full 11 hours later. 

"They're gonna always try to make you one of the boys.   
Don't let them. You're one badass chick.

\- Holtzmann."

A few of the morning's stresses roll off her back, as easy as anything.

And for the first time in awhile, she falls asleep smiling. 

 


End file.
